Robert Hughes on tough questions

A beloved faculty member and former Seminary President was the fall Quodlibet speaker, answering 'any question whatever' from across the community

Robert Hughes

(October 31, 2001)--Living with ambiguity can be painful as well as productive because "we live with questions we can neither escape nor fully answer," the Rev. Dr. Robert Hughes told the community of The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia (LTSP) this week.

Hughes, the St. John Professor of Practical Theology at LTSP, was the fourth faculty member to be on the "quodlibet" hot seat since the discipline began several years ago. In the exercise, which dates to medieval times, an honored professor listens in one session to "any question whatever" (the meaning of the word quodlibet) posed by the community. One or two weeks later the faculty responds to the questions he or she deems "worthy."

"I believe that all we can do with some questions is shrug," Hughes said. "The greatest danger in having answers to everything is to be proven more clueless than if we had simply shrugged." Thus, Hughes began to deal with some 30 questions reflecting almost as many moods during a 75-minute period.

He began by dealing with the notions of "sin and evil" framed within some 14 queries dealing with September 11, war, patriotism, the flag and "God Bless America."

"I need to begin with something no one asked about, namely, creation," he said. "I believe that God created the world with some suffering built in. Not all suffering is attributable to sin and evil. That takes account, I believe, of Genesis 2. These Genesis stories are not blueprints of how the world came to be. Rather, they are theological assertions in story form of what came to be and why. At least in Genesis 2, suffering was part of creation from the beginning. Adam (the earth creature) was lonely. 'It is not good,' said God, 'that Adam should be alone' (Gen. 2:18). The earth creature experienced limits. God said, 'Keep your cotton pickin' fingers off the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden.' And temptation is built in. The serpent, a creature of God, resides in Eden and eventually gets the ear of Eve. Why didn't God make this thing perfect?" Hughes shrugged. "Maybe God thought God's people needed challenge, risk and struggle in order to grow to full potential, what the New Testament calls 'the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.'"

Hughes made it clear that alongside suffering that leads to fuller life "there is suffering that ought not to be." Enter sin and evil. "Human slavery should not have been," he said. "Auschwitz should not have been. Vietnam should not have been. The assassinations of King and Kennedy should not have been. Likewise the tit for tat assassinations in the Middle East today should not be. The deaths of 7,000 Americans and world citizens on September 11 should not have been, nor should the deaths of innocent civilians from American bombs in Afghanistan. The deaths of starving children in Iraq should not be. Death camps, torture, crime and senseless death are not the will of God. Label it evil." But Hughes said evil is "more than, greater than, different from all the sins of individual human beings laid end to end. The forces we are up against are huge. We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and world rulers. Sin -- our failure to take our lives from God in trust and to give them back in obedience - complicates the human situation. And sin has a collective dimension, with anger hatred and revenge passed generation to generation."

Here is Robert Hughes on a sampling of other questions:

On leadership in the world since September 11:

"Exercising leadership often means going against the grain. Rather than providing answers, one provides questions. Rather than protecting people from threatening issues, one lets them feel the threat in order to stimulate reflections and, hopefully, adaptation. Rather than quelling conflict, sometimes you generate conflict, because out of such give and take, values are clarified and change becomes possible. Conflict does not mean fighting. With Gil Rendle of the Alban Institute, I define conflict as two or more opinions occupying the same space at the same time."

On being both a patriot and a Christian:

"I consider myself both. Whether or not a Christian can be a patriot hinges on what you mean by patriot. Patriotism is not 'my country right or wrong.' While the state has a divine mandate to restrain evil and seek justice, it also participates in the sin of a fallen world. Power corrupts. There are tyrannical governments, and all countries, including our own, abuse power at one time or another. This may be one of those moments. Power and justice are always in tension."

On singing "God Bless America"

"I would grant the song is sometimes sung with jingoistic intolerance. But in the Hebrew, the word blessing or BARAK has positive meanings and connotations. I for one do not understand 'blessing' as a special election of America, as if America is somehow the new Israel of God. Rather, I take it as a prayer, a prayer that God would be with the nation and would correct the nation (see Psalm 94 - those who God blesses God also corrects). Rightly understood, every nation ought to pray for God's blessing."

On the effects of terrorism

"A journalist wrote the following: 'A friend of mine has an electric fence around a piece of his land and keeps two cows there. I asked him one day how he liked his fence and whether it cost much to operate. 'Doesn't cost a thing,' he replied. 'That strand of fence wire is as dead as a piece of string, but the cows don't go within 10 feet of it. They learned their lesson the first few days.' The journalist continues 'Apparently this state of affairs is general throughout the United States. Thousands of cows are living in fear of a strand of wire that no longer confines them.'" Hughes said E. B. White wrote this illustration about post-depression America in 1939 with war on the horizon. "Terrorism is primarily about fear, but much of what torments us is not ultimately fearful. To be sure, bombs kill and maim. Anthrax kills. But courage is a gift of God. Were he still alive, I think E. B. White would say to us as he said to that generation, 'Come on out, the wire is really dead.'"

About prophetic preaching:

"Prophetic preaching is the profession of faith in the face of sin and evil. We are called to say in a public way what others may hold mainly in private. After all, Caesar will never know what God wants if the church does not proclaim it…The first task of the prophetic preacher is to share people's silence and pain and confusion and to reflect back to them what they are feeling and thinking. When we can we need to identify with listeners rather than stand over against them wagging our angry fingers."

About knowing the will of God in ambiguous situations:

"We are called to speak about what God is doing in our world and how we are incorporated into the ongoing work of God, but it is not at all clear what God is doing. We know God is love, and in the world love seeks justice. But, in the world God's action is not obvious. Human motives are always mixed, including our own. The saints are hidden. What seems plainly good isn't always. When people begin proclaiming, without ambiguity, what it means to be on God's side in complex situations, most likely they have fallen into what Martin Luther called a 'theology of glory.'"

"Lutheran Christians believe the answer to such questions is contextual and can only be discerned in the moment. You cannot turn the Sermon on the Mount and ethic for disciples into a rulebook to solve every family crisis, run a court system or create world peace. In a fallen world, love sometimes takes strange forms as it seeks justice. In Afghanistan, love may mean suspending all bombing immediately. On the other hand, love may mean keeping it up until bin Laden is found, the terrorist network is killed, and the Taliban government is toppled. For me at least, the answer is not yet clear."

"I would begin with Good Friday and the cross, Jesus' words to the soldiers: 'Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.' Forgiveness is counter-intuitive for sinful humans, but Jesus gives us a glimpse into the heart of God and a glimpse into what our own behavior might be."

What we can learn from September 11:

"I do not subscribe to the theory that every wrong in the world is the fault of the USA. However, our media and our sexually obsessed culture are corrupting other cultures in the world. Our policies in the Middle East have been a good deal less than even handed. We have built our towers of Babel in Manhattan and Chicago and Philadelphia and elsewhere, and though we have not recognized what those buildings represent, others have experienced them as a sinful grasp for power and for heaven. The storm (of September 11) has halted us in our tracks, and we have an opportunity yet one more time to ask about who and whose we are. "

About what we can learn from other world religions like Islam:

"The confession that for us Scripture is the source and norm does not mean there are no other sources of truth. God is not left without witness in other world religions. God uses many means for God's unveiling. The systematic reflection of theologians in the Christian community and other communities, human experience, insights from science, culture and the arts, as well as insights from other world religions, all of these are pointers to the truth. The real question is how the Old and New Testament Scriptures, as our source and norm, interact with these other sources. "

About homosexuality:

"If we say that Scripture is our source and norm, then it seems to me that this church must fully engage Scripture in whatever decisions are made regarding same gender unions and the ordination of practicing homosexual persons. I believe it is time to revisit Vision and Expectations, the document that spells out the issues of candidacy and ordination within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. If I were the newly elected Bishop of the ELCA I would not be calling for yet another blue ribbon commission to hand down recommendations for assembly action. What we need first is the kind of document whose audience is every ELCA congregation, that will be studied for at least a year prior to even thinking about voting. Only in such a thoroughgoing and public discussion will we have any chance of articulating deep emotions, identifying values and changing minds and hearts so that laity and clergy are able in some future assembly to make an informed decision. Most current medical research suggests that for the great majority of us being straight or gay is given, probably genetic, certainly not chosen. I believe that people continue to be created in the image of God heterosexual and homosexual. Whether God intended differently in the beginning, whether we are the way we are because we live after the fall I have now way of knowing.

"My own view is that when we engage Scripture in an evangelical way many of the passages that appear to condemn homosexual behavior will be shown to be subject to a variety of interpretations. Others in my view (Leviticus 18 and Romans 1) seem to be clear prohibitions. We are not fundamentalists. We don't simply line up proof texts. Rather we seek to understand these and other first century prohibitions and penalties in the light of current scientific data, theological reflection and agape love as revealed to us in Christ. Biblical affirmations were made in the context of alternatives which existed and the knowledge of those days, not ours."

About declining and dying churches and what authorities (synods and national structures) should do:

"Again, if I were the Bishop of the ELCA I would mandate that each Lutheran congregation offer a variety of worship forms, adding a new service wherever possible to accomplish that. Pericope forms have made lace doilies of Scripture. I would mandate that worshipers bring their own Bibles to church and that all Celebrate inserts be burned. I would mandate that preachers deal seriously with Biblical texts in their sermons…."

About relating to other church bodies:

"I'm ready to put a cork on it. Let's spend our energies making something of the Reformed and Episcopal agreements. Let's dialogue with world religions. Rather than spending time on new agreements, we ought to be figuring out, as a church, how to turn the church inside out, how to move from maintenance to mission, how to transform members into disciples. It's the spirit's work, of course, but we need to learn how to let ourselves be caught up in the process. "

In conclusion:

"Difficult as it is, preachers are called always to speak the Gospel into the ambiguity of the age. We will not all agree on the content and the detailed specifics of our speaking. However, even if all the problems of the world and the world's people had solutions - poverty, war, ignorance, injustice, disease - and we knew these solutions we would still be poor, wretched, blind and would above all need to hear the Gospel of God's forgiveness and peace.

"We are given one weapon and one weapon only. 'Take up the sword,' says Ephesians, 'which is the Word of God.' Nothing but a word! Doesn't sound like much, but it is. It's time to speak. Time to speak out. 'The Prince of Darkness grim, we'll tremble not for him. One little word will slay him.' That word is Jesus Christ."